Difference between revisions of "User:Bertrik Sikken"

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== Project ideas ==
 
== Project ideas ==
 
This is a list of ideas I'm thinking about, but have not fully developed into an actual project yet.
 
This is a list of ideas I'm thinking about, but have not fully developed into an actual project yet.
 +
 +
=== STM32F103ZET board ===
 +
For about E12,- I ordered [https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/thisboard/1095346075.html this STM32 board] from AliExpress, it has 64 kB of RAM, micro SD card slot and a real-time clock on board.
 +
I'm looking if I can help to add support for this board to stm32duino and platformio.
 +
 +
* [http://www.stm32duino.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=2913 Forum post] about this board on stm32duino forum.
 +
* [http://wiki.stm32duino.com/index.php?title=CZ_miniSTM32F103V_-EK similar looking CZ_miniSTM32F103V_-EK board] on the stm32duino wiki.
 +
* [http://www.st.com/en/microcontrollers/stm32f103ze.html official STM32F103ZE page] on the ST website
 +
 +
This board is a nice candidate for a minimal bat call recorder: just add an analog preamplifier for the ultrasonic signal (+ a lot of software!).
 +
This thing already has all the other things: a fast 1 us ADC converter with DMA support, 64 kB of RAM for buffering ultrasonic audio, an SD card slot, a real-time clock to save files by date/time and a USB port for data transfer.
 +
 +
=== Calorie counter ===
 +
Count the number of calories of products (drinks / candy bars / etc) at revspace, by listening to the bar MQTT stream of products sold, looking up the calories at openfoodfacts.org and re-sending a MQTT message with the daily totals.
 +
 +
topic revspace/bank/sale is used to publish the barcodes.
 +
 +
See [https://github.com/bertrik/caloriecounter the github repository]
 +
 +
=== PlatformIO ===
 +
Investigate [http://docs.platformio.org/en/stable/what-is-platformio.html PlatformIO] for Arduino projects.
 +
It appears this framework can help you build Arduino projects as a self-contained project with all properties defined in a text file, without having to configure them manually in the IDE each time
 +
(e.g. which board you are compiling for, board options, lwip settings, memory size, cpu speed, etc.)
 +
 +
=== HC-06 stuff ===
 +
The HC-06 is a serial-bluetooth converter. Default settings are 9600 baud, no parity.
 +
It doesn't really have a 'command mode' you need to enter, just make sure no BT client is connected and
 +
just send the command as a string of characters from the serial side within one second or so (without any CR/LF!).
 +
 +
To set odd parity:
 +
AT+PO
  
 
=== WiFi "top" ===
 
=== WiFi "top" ===
Line 60: Line 91:
 
* random MACs: apparently some devices randomize their MAC address if they're not connected to a station. Not sure yet how to handle that.
 
* random MACs: apparently some devices randomize their MAC address if they're not connected to a station. Not sure yet how to handle that.
 
* switching between promiscuous mode (for sniffing) and station mode (for reporting stats): I don't know how complicated this is, we'll see.   
 
* switching between promiscuous mode (for sniffing) and station mode (for reporting stats): I don't know how complicated this is, we'll see.   
 
=== Understand Bluetooth AP ===
 
I'm trying to understand how to set up a bluetooth AP on a basic Linux system, such that you can connect to it using an Android phone or tablet.
 
 
The idea is that there is some kind of useful application running on the Linux system, and that the "app" on the tablet/phone provides the user interface, connecting to the Linux system using REST.
 
 
Possible useful links:
 
* https://www.linux.com/learn/weekend-project-personal-area-networking-bluetooth
 
* <del>https://www.osnews.com/story/9836/Make_your_Arch_Linux_a_Bluetooth_Access_Point</del>: quite old, uses rfcomm, basically a serial port over bluetooth
 
* <del>http://bluez.sourceforge.net/contrib/HOWTO-PAN</del>: describes setting up a network using the "pand" utility, can't find that utility
 
* [http://www.ampedrftech.com/cod.htm bluetooth device class calculator]
 
* http://blog.fraggod.net/2015/03/28/bluetooth-pan-network-setup-with-bluez-5x.html
 
* [https://github.com/mk-fg/fgtk/blob/master/bt-pan bt-pan] script as referred by the link above
 
* [https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10915 Is Your Personal Area Network Giving You the BlueZ?]
 
 
My starting point is:
 
* a Yocto based Linux distribution
 
* a Linux 4.1 kernel
 
* Bluez 5
 
 
Understanding the various Linux drivers and tools in the Linux bluetooth stack
 
* btusb: the Linux kernel driver module for many USB/bluetooth adapters, 'modprobe'-ing this module also magically takes care of downloading firmware needed
 
* hciconfig, low-level configuration utility for manipulating a bluetooth controller. A bit like ifconfig, it can bring the interface up or down, set options, etc.
 
* hcitool, yet another utility to perform low-level bluetooth operations, like querying the name of paired devices
 
* bluetoothd, the bluetooth daemon
 
** /etc/bluetooth/main.conf : supposedly (one of) the configuration files for bluetoothd
 
** bluetoothd can be accessed over DBUS apparently, see [https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/bluetooth/bluez.git/tree/doc Bluez docs]
 
* bluetoothctl, a more high-level configuration utility, basically a command line user interface towards bluetoothd as I understand it. 
 
 
And some acronyms:
 
* NAP: network access protocol
 
* PAN: personal area network
 
* BNEP: bluetooth network encapsulation protocol
 
 
Getting somewhere: ?
 
* <pre>dbus-send --system --type=method_call --print-reply --dest=org.bluez /org/bluez/hci0 org.bluez.NetworkServer1.Register string:'nap' string:'bnep' </pre>
 
* following this guide on the server-side (requires systemd): https://blind.guru/tag/bluetooth-pan.html#a-bluetooth-pan-access-point-with-systemd
 
  
 
=== investigate quadcopter remote control ===
 
=== investigate quadcopter remote control ===
Line 124: Line 118:
 
In particular, I should definitely check out [https://github.com/rpp0/gr-lora this gr-lora project].
 
In particular, I should definitely check out [https://github.com/rpp0/gr-lora this gr-lora project].
 
Perhaps make it work for decoding balloon telemetry modes.
 
Perhaps make it work for decoding balloon telemetry modes.
 +
 +
An ambitious goal is to be able to decode LoRAWAN transmissions and implement an rtl-sdr based gateway.
  
 
=== Cypress PSOC5 ===
 
=== Cypress PSOC5 ===
Line 232: Line 228:
 
** resynthesize from fourier back into the time domain using an overlap-add method
 
** resynthesize from fourier back into the time domain using an overlap-add method
 
=> perhaps there is already software which performs these steps?
 
=> perhaps there is already software which performs these steps?
 +
 +
=== Disable flashy modes on an inexpensive flashlight ===
 +
I have one of those flashlights with an XML-T6 LED.
 +
It runs on a single 18650 and puts out about 250 lumens (guesstimate).
 +
However it also has a bunch of annoying 'modes':
 +
* max
 +
* bright
 +
* low
 +
* strobe
 +
* SOS
 +
 +
The flashy modes are really annoying, I see no use for them and only makes the flashlight harder to use.
 +
 +
The plan is to modify the light according to [https://devjoe.com/2014/09/20/cree-led-flashlight-mod-disabling-different-modes-sipik-sk68-clone/ instructions like these], so it becomes a '1-mode' light.
 +
Ideally, I'd like to have the max/bright/low modes without the flashy modes and also have a bigger difference between the modes, like 2.5/25/250 lumens.
 +
 +
=== ESP8266 modbus adapter for solar converters ===
 +
This idea is about programming an ESP8266 to talk to solar converter over RS485 on one side as a MODBUS/serial master, and making it appear as a MODBUS/TCP slave on the other side. This way you can talk to your solar converter using an existing MODBUS/TCP slave application.
 +
 +
The particular solar converter is the "EP Solar MPPT Tracer A 3210A".
 +
[https://github.com/kasbert/epsolar-tracer This github project] may give some clues to which modbus registers contain what.
 +
 +
The RS485 side is done using a (soft-)UART on the ESP8266 with a TTL-to-RS485 converter.
 +
 +
The TCP/IP side is done using the built-in wifi of the ESP8266.
 +
 +
ESP8266 as modbus slave (over network):
 +
* https://github.com/andresarmento/modbus-esp8266
 +
* https://github.com/yaacov/ArduinoModbusSlaveTCP
 +
 +
ESP8266 as modbus master:
 +
* https://github.com/4-20ma/ModbusMaster
 +
 +
=== GPS repeater ===
 +
This idea is about experimenting with a cheap GPS repeater built out of an "active" GPS antenna.
 +
 +
The problem this solves is that often indoors you have no GPS reception, but you like to have some signal to experiment with (e.g. a LoRa tracker).
 +
 +
Plan:
 +
* get a cheap active GPS antenna from AliExpress (some as cheap as E2,- !), most just mention one frequency (1575.42 MHz)
 +
* get a bias-T circuit to feed it the supply voltage (e.g. from a KOPPLA) and pass the RF signal onto an indoor antenna
 +
* the indoor antenna may be as simple as a 1/4 wave coax dipole: center conductor sticking up (about 47 mm), coax shielding is divided into 3 of 4 ground radials sticking sideways
 +
* build it and test it with a smart phone, tracker hardware, etc.
 +
 +
See also:
 +
* [https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/156488 Reradiating antena for GPS]
 +
 +
=== Indoor radar speed sign ===
 +
This idea about placing a simple IQ-output radar sensor indoors in the hacker space, do some basic signal processing on the IQ doppler signal and determine movement speed and direction, then display this on a LED display.
 +
This is of no immediate practical use other than fun, but helps me to gain a bit more experience with microwave radar sensors and eventually build a more effective setup for detecting/counting bats flying in and out of a roost.
 +
 +
Implement this on a PSOC5 platform or on the STM32 using Arduino.

Revision as of 10:11, 19 May 2018

User info Bertrik Sikken
Name Bertrik Sikken
Nick bertrik
Tagline heb ik niet

You can reach me at bertrik@sikken.nl or bertrik@gmail.com

Studied Electrical Engineering at Twente University.


Main interests:

  • reverse-engineering things (USB stuff, mp3 players), working on http://rockbox.org
  • studying bats and making electronics for recording/listening to bat sounds
  • radio stuff, in particular software-defined radio


Projects I work(ed) on (refresh):

 Project Status
FrontDoorDisplayAbandoned
HabAlertAppAbandoned
ISSOAbandoned
IbmPosDisplayAbandoned
Pico TrackersAbandoned
RadarOnAStickAbandoned
WifiLampAbandoned
A4PaperDispenserCompleted
BuildStatusTrafficLightCompleted
CJMCU-811Completed
CO2MeterHackingCompleted
CrawlSpaceSensorCompleted
DecodingLoraCompleted
DustSensorCompleted
ElectronicLoadCompleted
EspNowSkipCompleted
IntakefancontrollerCompleted
LichtKrantCompleted
LoRaGatewayCompleted
LoraBatBoxCompleted
LoraWanNodeCompleted
MHZ19Completed
MainsFrequencyCompleted
MiniSTM32F103ZECompleted
PowerLightCompleted
RC522HackingCompleted
RevRadioCompleted
STM32Completed
Secure iButtonCompleted
SoilHumiditySensorCompleted
StofAnanasCompleted
StofradarCompleted
TTNHABBridgeCompleted
VINDRIKTNINGCompleted
ZigbeeCoordinatorCompleted
Sensor-data-bridgeCompleted
AntiLostIn progress
AudioMothIn progress
CubeCellIn progress
EspAudioSensorIn progress
Esp32camIn progress
FMCWRadarIn progress
LoRa-E5-miniIn progress
LoraWanDustSensorIn progress
MainsFrequency2.0In progress
Msi2500SDRIn progress
Sim7020In progress
StereoBatRecorderIn progress
UltrasonicPlayerIn progress
EspNowAudioInitializing
... further results


Project ideas

This is a list of ideas I'm thinking about, but have not fully developed into an actual project yet.

STM32F103ZET board

For about E12,- I ordered this STM32 board from AliExpress, it has 64 kB of RAM, micro SD card slot and a real-time clock on board. I'm looking if I can help to add support for this board to stm32duino and platformio.

This board is a nice candidate for a minimal bat call recorder: just add an analog preamplifier for the ultrasonic signal (+ a lot of software!). This thing already has all the other things: a fast 1 us ADC converter with DMA support, 64 kB of RAM for buffering ultrasonic audio, an SD card slot, a real-time clock to save files by date/time and a USB port for data transfer.

Calorie counter

Count the number of calories of products (drinks / candy bars / etc) at revspace, by listening to the bar MQTT stream of products sold, looking up the calories at openfoodfacts.org and re-sending a MQTT message with the daily totals.

topic revspace/bank/sale is used to publish the barcodes.

See the github repository

PlatformIO

Investigate PlatformIO for Arduino projects. It appears this framework can help you build Arduino projects as a self-contained project with all properties defined in a text file, without having to configure them manually in the IDE each time (e.g. which board you are compiling for, board options, lwip settings, memory size, cpu speed, etc.)

HC-06 stuff

The HC-06 is a serial-bluetooth converter. Default settings are 9600 baud, no parity. It doesn't really have a 'command mode' you need to enter, just make sure no BT client is connected and just send the command as a string of characters from the serial side within one second or so (without any CR/LF!).

To set odd parity:

AT+PO 

WiFi "top"

This idea is about a simple demo application that shows the number of unique WiFi stations detected. This gives an idea about how busy a place is.

A bit like the CPU load in the unix/linux "top" tool, this is indicated as a number at different timescales, e.g. number of unique WiFi stations detected in the last minute, last 5 minutes and last 15 minute, last hour, etc.

The implementation is done using an ESP8266 in promiscuous mode. Using the callback for promiscuous mode, a table is built with an entry for each unique MAC address:

  • only "stations" (like phones, laptops, etc) are recorded in this table, not access points
  • the table records the following:
    • the unique MAC address
    • the time is has been seen first
    • the time is has been seen last
  • the wifi channel is switched at some interval
  • every minute (for example), the stats are calculated from the table and published on MQTT

Operations on this table:

  • entries older than 60 minutes are removed from the table.
  • when we see a new unknown MAC, it's added to the table (if it fits) and we set the first-seen timestamp
  • when we see a known MAC, the last-seen timestamp is updated
  • getting stats from the table, for example:
    • number of unique station MACs seen in the last minute
    • number of unique station MACs seen in the last 5 minutes
    • number of unique station MACs seen in the last 15 minutes
    • number of unique station MACs seen in the last 60 minutes
  • perhaps we can get stats using either the first-seen or the last-seen timestap?

Possible issues:

  • privacy: the unique MAC of any Wifi station is never exposed, only cumulative numbers. If you're really concerned, consider turning off your WiFi devices (e.g. using airplane mode)
  • random MACs: apparently some devices randomize their MAC address if they're not connected to a station. Not sure yet how to handle that.
  • switching between promiscuous mode (for sniffing) and station mode (for reporting stats): I don't know how complicated this is, we'll see.

investigate quadcopter remote control

It turns out that the typical little cheap Chinese quadcopters use a remote-control protocol that can be easily recreated using the famous NRF24L01+ chip (< $1 and easily connected to an arduino). This gives nice opportunity to either:

  1. transmit our own control signal, to control a quadcopter from something different than the manual remote control, e.g. automatic control
  2. receive the control signal, so the manual remote control that comes with a quadcopter can be used to steer other things (like a model car).

I haven't found a good overview of quadcopter remote control protocol specifications yet, there seem to be plenty examples of "here-is-the-code" however.

mini word clock in dutch

Basically an monochrome 8x8 word clock, in Dutch, showing local time in the Netherlands.

This git repo has the current code.

See here for a demo running on an arduino nano.

The plan is to run this from an ESP8266 instead of an arduino nano, so it can get the time from the internet using NTP. The time offset will be fixed to Dutch local time, i.e. GMT+1 taking into account summer time. Summer time will be determined using the general rule "from 2:00 local time on the last sunday of March until 3:00 local time on the last sunday of October".

Local date calculation:

Understanding LoRa

Ultimate goal is to create an SDR algorithm to decode LoRa without the need for dedicated LoRa hardware. This could be useful when tracking HABs transmitting LoRa for example. See DecodingLora and EncodingLora.

In particular, I should definitely check out this gr-lora project. Perhaps make it work for decoding balloon telemetry modes.

An ambitious goal is to be able to decode LoRAWAN transmissions and implement an rtl-sdr based gateway.

Cypress PSOC5

Play with the Cypress PSOC5 platform, which combines a ARM Cortex-m3 processor with configurable analog blocks. I'm thinking of combining it with a 24 GHz doppler radar sensor, to process the signal and present it as a USB audio device (stereo signal contains I and Q parts). See RadarOnAStick.

Simple Doppler motion sensors

You can find basic doppler microwave motion sensors based on a single transistor, with some weird traces on the PCB very cheaply, for example

Typically the microwave part of these consists of a single transistor with a rectangular area on one leg and a meandering trace (with lots of vias to the other side) on the other leg. The output of this circuit seems to go into a chip very much like the ones used in PIR sensors.

See also https://github.com/jdesbonnet/RCWL-0516 for a reverse engineering effort of these doppler radar modules.

Rust

Investigate the rust language.

ESP32

I have a Wemos "LOLIN32 V1.0.0" ESP32 board, play with it. Discover Bluetooth capabilities, low power modes. Compare it with ESP8266.

Bare-bones Arduino bat detector

This is an idea for a very basic heterodyne bat detector, doing signal processing on an Arduino, requiring minimal external components.

The basic principle of a heterodyne detector is that it just mixes (multiplies) the audio signal with a square wave, low-pass filters the result and puts it on a speaker.

Multiplying with a square wave can also be considered to be just alternatively inverting and not-inverting the signal. So if you sample an ultrasonic signal at twice the rate you want to multiply, you can just subtract odd samples from even samples and low-pass filter that.

How this can be done in an AVR Arduino:

  • sample the audio signal at twice the detection frequency, say 84 kHz. An AVR should just be able to do that.
  • apply a 1-pole IIR high-pass filter to remove DC bias, this takes one shift instruction and one addition.
  • multiply by the detection frequency, this means just inverting the odd samples.
  • low-pass filter the signal, this can be done using a moving average filter, say 16 samples long (first null at 5.25 kHz). Theoretically, averaging 16 samples should result in two bits extra accuracy. This operation takes some storage, an addition and a subtraction.
  • output the filtered signal using PWM, possibly at the same rate that we are sampling the input audio.

The microphone can be a 40 kHz piezo transducer, to keep it cheap (but also limited to 40 kHz). The pre-amplifier can be a single transistor with some resistors around it, providing about 40x gain. The arduino does the signal processing (mixing, low-pass filter) to shift the bat audio to human range. The speaker amplifier can just be a simple two transistor push-pull circuit, since the output from the Arduino is digital/PWM.

AVR Arduino sample rate

As far as I understand, the ADC clock can be set to 1 MHz. Conversion takes 13 cycles, so this can be a problem to reach a sample rate above 80 kHz.

Example C code

(this is the general idea, but I don't know if it compiles):

#define BUF_SIZE    16

static void ISR(void)
{
    static int16_t buffer[BUF_SIZE];
    static int16_t lowpass = 0;
    static int32_t sum = 0;
    static bool even = false;

    int16_t input, signal, mixed;

    // sample signal as 16 bits (10 bits significant)
    input = ....

    // HPF input signal
    signal = input - lowpass;
    lowpass += signal >> 4;

    // multiply by carrier
    mixed = even ? signal : -signal;
    even = !even;

    // calculate moving average sum
    sum += mixed ;
    sum -= buffer[index];
    buffer[index] = mixed ;
    index = (index + 1) % BUF_SIZE;

    // output LPF as 8-bit number
    out = sum >> 7;
    ...
}

Bat call cleaner

This idea is about a simple push-button tool to clean up bat call recordings, to make them more suitable for playback in a bat lure.

By cleaning up, I mean removing the background noise and turning it into a pure sine wave like signal characterized only by an instantaneous frequency and amplitude. Any harmonics will be lost.

This way, you can pick a nice bat call recording and turn it into a file suitable for playing back at relatively loud volume from a bat call player / lure, without the broadband noise.

The signal is put through the following signal processing stages:

  • Apply a high-pass filter to get rid of non-ultrasonics like speech, say at 10 kHz
  • Convert the signal into a complex analytic signal, by creating the imaginary part using a Hilbert transform.
    • The Hilbert transform can be approximated by a FIR filter of appropriate length to get the desired bandwidth.
  • Split the complex signal into an instantaneous frequency and amplitude.
    • The frequency is determined by differentiating the instantaneous phase (inverse tangens i/q).
    • The amplitude is determined by calculating the norm of the complex signal (sqrt of i^2 + q^2)
  • Average/low-pass the frequency component, say at 0.1 ms intervals. Do the same to the amplitude.
  • Re-synthesize the signal s using the simple model s = A.sin(2.pi.t/f) where A is amplitude, t is time and f is frequency, interpolating A and f.

Alternative:

  • Apply a high-pass filter to get rid of non-ultrasonics like speech, say at 10 kHz
  • chop the signal up in segments of (say) 100 ms and determine the total energy content in each segment
  • choose the quietest segment and use this as a "background noise template"
    • perform a fourier analysis on the template
  • reduce the noise on the signal using the template:
    • for each segment, apply for each frequency an attenuation based on the signal level compared to the template level
    • resynthesize from fourier back into the time domain using an overlap-add method

=> perhaps there is already software which performs these steps?

Disable flashy modes on an inexpensive flashlight

I have one of those flashlights with an XML-T6 LED. It runs on a single 18650 and puts out about 250 lumens (guesstimate). However it also has a bunch of annoying 'modes':

  • max
  • bright
  • low
  • strobe
  • SOS

The flashy modes are really annoying, I see no use for them and only makes the flashlight harder to use.

The plan is to modify the light according to instructions like these, so it becomes a '1-mode' light. Ideally, I'd like to have the max/bright/low modes without the flashy modes and also have a bigger difference between the modes, like 2.5/25/250 lumens.

ESP8266 modbus adapter for solar converters

This idea is about programming an ESP8266 to talk to solar converter over RS485 on one side as a MODBUS/serial master, and making it appear as a MODBUS/TCP slave on the other side. This way you can talk to your solar converter using an existing MODBUS/TCP slave application.

The particular solar converter is the "EP Solar MPPT Tracer A 3210A". This github project may give some clues to which modbus registers contain what.

The RS485 side is done using a (soft-)UART on the ESP8266 with a TTL-to-RS485 converter.

The TCP/IP side is done using the built-in wifi of the ESP8266.

ESP8266 as modbus slave (over network):

ESP8266 as modbus master:

GPS repeater

This idea is about experimenting with a cheap GPS repeater built out of an "active" GPS antenna.

The problem this solves is that often indoors you have no GPS reception, but you like to have some signal to experiment with (e.g. a LoRa tracker).

Plan:

  • get a cheap active GPS antenna from AliExpress (some as cheap as E2,- !), most just mention one frequency (1575.42 MHz)
  • get a bias-T circuit to feed it the supply voltage (e.g. from a KOPPLA) and pass the RF signal onto an indoor antenna
  • the indoor antenna may be as simple as a 1/4 wave coax dipole: center conductor sticking up (about 47 mm), coax shielding is divided into 3 of 4 ground radials sticking sideways
  • build it and test it with a smart phone, tracker hardware, etc.

See also:

Indoor radar speed sign

This idea about placing a simple IQ-output radar sensor indoors in the hacker space, do some basic signal processing on the IQ doppler signal and determine movement speed and direction, then display this on a LED display. This is of no immediate practical use other than fun, but helps me to gain a bit more experience with microwave radar sensors and eventually build a more effective setup for detecting/counting bats flying in and out of a roost.

Implement this on a PSOC5 platform or on the STM32 using Arduino.